


Reclamation

by DragonStar84



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fanfiction, Interspecies Romance, Romance, Transformers Age of Extinction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-01-15 22:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12330231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonStar84/pseuds/DragonStar84
Summary: Sequel to Faded Memories. Barely alive after the battle in China, Lockdown is forced to rely on the help of a human woman to survive and everything he thought he knew or believed will be turned upside down





	1. Chapter 1

“No,” Joy said as she answered her phone.

 

“I haven’t even asked you anything yet,” her father, Ron said.

 

“Doesn’t matter, if you’re calling me the day after summer break starts you probably want me to do something with you and the answer is no. Unless you were wanting to go hunting with me,” Joy replied as she set her bow by the front door.

 

“Come on honey, after all the stress the other day, couldn’t we just get together for a little while? I could really use your help,” Ron said.

 

“You need my help?” Joy asked.

 

“Yeah, everyone else from the lab is in China or recovering from injuries. I‘m on my own. All but one of our trucks were damaged, I need you to bring the horse trailer and help me,” he told her.

 

“This is about the aliens, isn’t it?” Joy asked.

 

“Yes, some of the smaller ships crashed in the city and Mr. Joyce wants the tech collected before anyone else can get their hands on it,” he explained.

 

“Dad, you know how I feel about this. I am not going to go help you drag in alien bodies so you can dissect them and melt them down,” Joy told him.

 

“They’re just machines, built by aliens of course, but the robots aren’t alive. We’ve been able to-”

 

“Dad,” Joy cut in, an edge of anger working its way into her voice.

 

“Okay, so far all I’ve heard reports of are downed ships, none of the actual robots. If we run into any we’ll just leave them for someone else to get later.”

 

“Dad, I really don’t-”

 

“The rescue teams have been spread thin, they’ve done sweeps of the areas, but there’s a good chance that if anyone was buried under the wreckage they may not have been found. If I run into anyone who was injured and hasn’t been found by the rescue teams, having someone with medical training out there with me could mean the difference between life and death,” he pointed out.

 

Joy let out a frustrated sigh, “I hate you,”

 

“I love you too honey. How soon can you be here?” Ron asked.

 

“About an hour if traffic is good.”

 

After saying goodbye Joy grabbed her backpack, dumped out her hunting supplies, put her first aid kit back in then added a better stocked first aid kit and a few other supplies. After tossing her bag into her truck and hooking up the trailer she left, all the while cursing her inability to turn her back on anyone who might be hurt and her father for using that against her.

 

When she drove into Chicago she couldn’t stop her mind from wandering back to when the Decepticons had taken the city. She had been in the city, meeting with her grandmother’s attorney when the Decepticons had first been spotted in the city. She had made it to one of the bridges leading out of the city, but the bridge was raised before she could get out, the cars on the bridge, including hers had crashed into a pile at the base of the raised bridge. She had had a split second to wonder why her airbag hadn’t opened yet before her head smashed into the steering wheel. She had woken up sometime the next day with a pounding headache, still in her car which was nearly vertical, with the front bumper on the ground. She seemed to have gotten lucky as several cars that she could see had been crushed or burned. She nearly called out for help when she saw two people run by and dive into an overturned car, but then she realized she could hear voices that didn’t sound quite human and she remained silent.

 

She braced herself and had gotten her belt off then lowered herself down so the foot space under the dash hid her better. She watched as one of the robots realized the others were going to kill them, the fear and emotion in his voice had shaken her. Her father was a robotics engineer, he had created amazing robots all her life and when the existence of these robotic beings had been revealed she had thought the same thing her father had. They were just robots created by some advanced alien race, maybe by two alien races which would explain the two different groups of robots fighting. Or maybe, like in so many films the machines had taken over, but were still just machines built by someone else, they couldn’t truly be sentient. Sure she had heard some people say the robots were alive and sentient, but she had seen some of her father’s artificial intelligence robots that, with a few more years in development would probably be able to convince a lot of people they were alive. As she watched the one being shot and killed by another and then the way the yellow one looked at the two humans hidden in the car, with such sadness and hopelessness, she knew they weren’t just advanced robots, they were alive and sentient.

 

After the battle had been won she had been horrified to find out that the company her father worked for was taking the bodies of the dead robots to study them. Her father though was still convinced they were nothing more than machines and whatever she had seen to make her think otherwise was just a result of her head injury.

 

Joy pulled herself from her memories as she arrived at the KSI building and couldn’t help smiling at the large hole through the front of the building, “Too bad they didn’t just force everyone out and burn it to the ground,” she said to herself before pulling out her cell phone and calling to let her father know she was there.

 

A little while later Joy was helping Ron hook up a mangled part of a ship to a forklift, “Okay, I’ll get this on the truck, you gather the small pieces and see if you can figure out where the rest of it ended up,” Ron told her.

 

“Alright,” she agreed then cringed, fighting back a feeling of nausea when the forklift lifted the piece of wreckage and a severed metal hand fell out of it, pinned in a twisted piece of metal.

 

“What’s wrong?” Ron asked as he stopped the forklift and walked over to her.

 

“I can handle gaping wounds and blood, but not severed limbs,” Joy replied, “How am I supposed to be a doctor if I feel sick just looking at a severed limb?”

 

“I’m sure you’ll do fine, just something that may take a while to get use to seeing, you’ll be a great doctor,” Ron told her, “Why don’t’ you head that way, it looks like there might be another ship over there?” he said pointing off towards an overpass.

 

“Okay,” Joy replied.

 

She had followed the trail through under the overpass, across a street and down a dead-end ally when she spotted something strange lying at the end of the alley, near the remains of a damaged ship. At first she thought it was a person caught in the wreckage since she could see flesh that seemed to be twisted through the metal. She quickly rushed forward, bracing herself to find a mangled dead body, but also preparing herself to spring into action if the person was still alive.

 

What she found was something she never could have been prepared for. A chest covered in flesh heaved in labored breaths, but the back, legs and head of the dog like creature was metal. She hesitantly reached out and touched it, but it didn’t wake up or move, so she started looking over its wounds. A deep gash ran across its chest with a large piece of twisted metal stuck into it, but as she pulled out the metal and inspected the wound it didn’t look like it had penetrated deep enough to affect any internal organs, assuming the thing had normal organs. Joy pulled out her stitching supplies, cleaned the wound and began stitching it, the creature started to make pained whimpers, but remained still. As she worked she noticed several other places on the flesh that were scarred, some of them with slight lines across them indicating this creature had been stitched up many times before. As the creature whimpered again she looked up and realized its glowing red eyes were open and it was watching her.

 

“It’s alright, I’m just trying to help you, please don‘t hurt me,” she said trying to keep her voice as calm and reassuring as possible.

 

The creature continued to watch her, but it made no attempt to move so she continued until she had finished stitching the wound and bandaged it. When she finished and had packed her supplies up she noticed that the creature was looking behind her. She slowly turned around and found two more of the dog like creatures standing behind her with another one lying behind them. As soon as she turned around one of the creatures darted past her to the inured one she had been taking care of. It sniffed at the bandaged wound then grabbed Joy’s arm, somehow managing to do it gently enough that it only felt like light pinpricks from its sharp teeth as it then pulled her towards the other two. When she got closer she realized there were actually three, the healthy looking one, one that was laying down but had its head up and a third one that was laying behind the other and appeared to be dead with a large hole through its chest and back.

 

The one that was laying down looked like one of its back legs wasn’t working as it struggled to stand. Looking at the two that were standing and the odd angle of the other’s leg, she had a feeling its leg was dislocated. At least that’s what it looked like, the metal around the top of the hip of the injured leg was bent up at an odd angle and the top of the leg was pushed up higher than the hip when the creature tried to stand.

 

“Okay, this is going to be fun,” Joy said trying to figure out what to do, “I don’t suppose you understand English do you?” she asked and wasn’t surprised when they just cocked their heads at her in confusion, “That’s what I was afraid of, you look like dogs, you act like dogs, you’re probably about as intelligent as dogs. Why couldn’t I have run into some of the sentient robots? Well this is going to hurt, please don’t kill me.”

 

After getting the injured creature over near a wall and getting it to lay down she braced one foot on the wall then grabbed the dog’s leg, pushed off the wall with her foot and pulled the leg as hard as she could. The dog let out a yelp as the leg popped back into place. The other two dogs charged at Joy when the other yelped, one seemed to check on the injured dog while the other stood growling menacingly at Joy. After a second the injured one stood up, it still limped, but was able to walk much better than it had before. It then walked over to her and nuzzled its head against her side affectionately and the other two relaxed.

 

Joy smiled, “You’re welcome,” she said petting the soft strip of fur that ran down its back.

 

It then pushed her over towards where the other two had moved next to the fifth dog. One of the dogs pushed its head against the fifth’s head and whined. Joy knelt next to it to check, just to be sure, but found as she had suspected that there was no sign of life.

 

Looking up apologetically at the dogs she said, “I’m sorry, he’s dead, there’s nothing I can do,” then she stepped away.

 

The dogs sniffed and nuzzled at the dead one letting out sad whimpers before finally moving to the back of the ally with the other injured one.

 

Joy walked to the back of the ally and pet each of the dogs for a moment then said, “Stay here, I guess I’ll have to sneak you home with me. I sure can’t leave you here, if anyone else finds you they’d probably kill you or lock you up in some lab.”

 

Joy returned a few minutes later with the horse trailer, shifted the ship scraps she’d already gathered towards the doors then she walked into the ally to see if she could convince the dogs to get in. All four dogs were curled up together in a pile of fur, flesh and metal that if she hadn’t already seen them she’d never be able to tell what the pile was.

 

She was about to call out to the dogs when someone behind her said, “What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a war zone like this?”

 

Joy turned to find three men standing behind her, blocking the way out of the ally, “She may be pretty, but she sure is stupid being here,” the second said.

 

“And here I thought today was going to be boring, just collecting alien junk. Looks like we get some entertainment too,” the third said as they started to move closer to her.

 

“Please don’t hurt me,” Joy pleaded fearfully.

 

“You do exactly as we say and you shouldn’t get hurt,” the first said.

 

“But I like it better when they fight back,” the third said.

 

“I’ll do whatever you want,” Joy said walking up to the first man and taking both his hands in hers. Suddenly tightening her grip on his hands she kicked her foot as hard as she could into the center of his chest resulting in a loud cracking of bones, “when hell freezes over,” she finished grabbing a metal bar off of the ground and taking up a defensive position.

 

The man had dropped to the ground clutching his chest and struggling to breathe, his two friends had knelt at his side, but he managed to gasp out, “Get her, make her pay.”

 

Joy took a step back as the two men started to stand up, but they froze suddenly, looks of absolute terror on their faces as the alien dogs appeared on either side of Joy. Joy reached out to pet one of the dogs and smirked at the men, “So, you prefer a fight?” she asked looking at the third man.

 

In a flash the men tore out of the ally, the injured one struggling a bit, but still managing a good speed considering his broken ribs.

 

Joy turned to the dogs and started petting all of them, “You’re such good dogs,” she praised each one, “Now, come with me,” she said and motioned trying to get them to follow her, after several minutes of failed attempts to get them to leave the ally she finally got a rope, tied it around one dog’s neck and tried to drag it towards the trailer with no luck, it was far too strong, “Great, just great, I get stuck with dogs as big as horses and stubborn as mules.”

 

All of a sudden one of the dogs grabbed her by the arm, managing to be gentle enough to only leave a few small pinprick sized wounds on her arm as it dragged her towards the back of the ally towards the remains of the crashed ship. Once it got to the ship it let go then shoved her up onto the ship. She expected to find another dog behind the ship, but gasped in shock when she spotted one of the human like robots, lying unmoving in a pool of light blue fluid. She scrambled down off of the ship, grabbed her backpack then climbed back to the robot and started to look it over. She wasn’t even sure how to tell if it was still alive, but the blue fluid seemed to be leaking out of torn tubes in a steady pulsing as if there was a heart or something still circulating it through the body. Both of its hands had been severed, one at the wrist and the other halfway between the wrist and elbow. Joy quickly set to work tying off the torn tubes, reattaching and stitching others that had been torn in other parts of the robots body. Once it seemed she had stopped all the bleeding she got out some more ropes, tied them to the uninjured dogs and managed to get them to drag the robot into the horse trailer without any trouble.

 

“Well at least now I know why you wouldn’t leave the ally before,” she said, petting the dogs once more before closing up the trailer.

 

Joy pulled her truck up to where her father was working, parking so she could unload the scrap from the trailer without him seeing inside of it. She got out and without a word unloaded the scrap onto his truck while working herself up to pull off a good act.

 

“What are you doing?” Ron asked as Joy shut the back of the trailer.

 

Joy turned to him, tears streaming down her face, “I’m going home,” she replied.

 

“What happened?” he asked concern evident on his face.

 

“There were three men, they were going to rape me, I fought them off no problem, but I just, I just can’t stay here any longer,” Joy told him as he pulled her into his arms.

 

“Are you sure you’re okay? Shouldn’t we call the police?” Ron asked her.

 

“I’ll call the police on my way out of town, trust me those guys are going to have to show up at a hospital or dead soon. I just need to get out of here.”

 

“Alright, go on. I’m so sorry for making you come here when you didn’t want to, I never should have manipulated you like that, or sent you off alone. I love you, I’d never you put you in danger, I’m so sorry,” Ron said genuine regret evident in his eyes.

 

“It’s alright dad, I’ll see you later,” she said before getting into her truck.

 

Joy let out a sigh of relief as she drove out of the city; she had gotten the aliens safely away from her father and anyone who might want to hurt them. Now she just had to get them home and hope the robot wasn’t one of the bad guys. Something she was genuinely afraid of considering the dog’s eyes were red and she was sure she had heard that the bad robots had red eyes, but the dogs were also part organic so maybe it was different with them.

 

 

\----

 

When Joy got home she couldn’t help thinking how lucky she and the aliens that she had found were that she lived on a farm. In the early nineteen hundreds it had been one of the largest farms in the area, luckily several of the large barns were still standing and in good enough condition to hide the aliens in. Her grandmother had been paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident and had begged not to be put in a nursing home. Joy had just been accepted into college at the time, but when her grandmother had said she’d leave the farm, a considerable inheritance that could pay for several degrees at the best colleges and free room, board and being well paid for taking care of her. When still no one else in the family had been willing to take care of her, Joy had finally stepped in, unwilling to see her grandmother forgotten in a nursing home. For five years Joy had taken care of her grandmother, until she had died the previous summer, then Joy had finally gotten started on her medical degree.

 

Joy pulled into the largest barn, one that was nice and open, having been built mainly for storing the tractors and other farm equipment that had been sold off when her grandparents had gotten too old to farm the land themselves and had started renting out the fields to other farmers.

 

As soon as she opened the back of the trailer the dogs jumped out and started sniffing around the barn, the two injured ones finding an old pile of hay bales to curl up on.

 

Joy was so distracted watching the dogs that she jumped and took several steps away from the trailer when someone said, “Where are we? Why am I in a box?”

 

Joy hesitantly stepped closer to the trailer and looked up into glowing green eyes, “You were unconscious, I had to put you in there to get you out of the city. If anyone else had found you they probably would have tried to kill you. You’re at my farm, about an hour away from Chicago,” she explained.

 

“Why would you help me?” he asked.

 

Joy shrugged, “You were hurt and needed help, I knew if I didn’t help you no one else would, I couldn’t just leave you there. It’s just in my nature to want to help everyone, at least that’s what everyone who knows me says. I patched you up as well as I could, but I don‘t exactly know much about alien robots so if there‘s anything else you need you‘ll have to tell me.”

 

“Where is Lockdown, where’s the ship?” he asked as he slid out of the trailer and glanced around the barn.

 

“The space ship that was over Chicago?” Joy asked and he nodded, “It disappeared, reappeared in China and last I heard it had disappeared again several hours ago. Is Lockdown another robot like you?”

 

“Yes, he’s our leader, captain of the ship, he wouldn’t leave without me,” he said trying to do something near his shoulder, but after a moment of struggling with his severed limbs he looked at Joy, “Open up that compartment there,“ he said motioning to a small latch on his shoulder as he leaned down so she could reach it, “See if there’s a blue light blinking.”

 

Joy opened it to reveal a slowly blinking blue light, “It’s on, what is that?” she asked.

 

“Tracking beacon, where ever Lockdown is he’ll be able to tell I’m alive and come find me. My comlink is damaged so I can‘t just tell him where I am,” he replied.

 

“Well until then is there anything you need?”

 

He inspected where she had patched up the stumps of his arms for a moment then said, “Not right away, you’re not a bad medic.”

 

Joy couldn’t help smiling, “Thank you, I’m currently studying to be a doctor, but I’ve still got a long ways to go. I’m Joy by the way, what’s your name?” she asked.

 

He said something that sounded foreign and Joy wasn’t completely sure she’d be able to pronounce it without some practice, but then he said, “Sunfire, in your language.”

 

Joy smiled, “That will be easier to pronounce. What about the dogs, or whatever they are?” she asked motioning towards the dogs.

 

“We call them steeljaws, although dogs are the closest thing your planet has to them. This is Nova,” he said as one of the dogs walked up to him, followed by the other uninjured one, “and Shadow,  the one with the injured leg is Fang and the other is Star, then there’s Comet, but I don’t see her here,” he told her.

 

“There was another one, but it was dead, looked like it had been run through or shot straight through its chest,” Joy told him while petting Nova.

 

“It’s not surprising, from what I know of your earth dogs the steeljaws are slightly more intelligent, but otherwise the only major difference is they mate for life. Her mate was killed several months ago and she had become reckless in her attacks since then, like she didn’t have any desire to preserve her own life. I’m honestly surprised the other four are alive, they had to have fallen from the main ship, they always land on their feet, but I’ve never seen them fall from that high,” Sunfire said.

 

“That would explain the way Fang’s leg was dislocated,” Joy said.

 

“How’d you get them to let you near them or me for that matter? They don’t usually like organics, you’re lucky you didn’t end up in pieces,” Sunfire said.

 

“Star was unconscious when I found her and I started stitching up the cut on her chest. She woke up while I was still stitching her up, but she didn’t do anything, then when the others showed up, they seemed to realize I was trying to help,” Joy told him.

 

“They probably did, Lockdown has had to stitch them up so many times I think they realize it’s to help them,” Sunfire told her.

 

“So he’s captain of the ship and ships medic?” Joy asked.

 

“No, technically I’m the ships medic although clearly I’m temporarily off duty until I get my hands fixed. Lockdown just won’t let anyone else take care of his babies,” Sunfire said smiling, then added, “Don’t you dare tell him I said that.”

 

“Oh, so he’s one of those guys who always have to keep up the tough guy act and refuse to admit they have a soft side too?” Joy asked.

 

“Pretty much, although it’s mostly not an act, he is the most feared bounty hunter in the universe,” Sunfire told her.

 

“Really, what were you guys doing on earth? Hunting down Decepticons?” Joy asked.

 

Before he could answer they heard a vehicle pulling up the gravel driveway, “Stay here, be quite and try to keep the dogs quite,” she said before leaving the barn.

 

“Tim, what are you doing here?” Joy asked as she watched her younger brother step out of his truck.

 

“Dad said some guys tried to attack you in the city today and you left in tears. So what really happened?” Tim asked.

 

“What do you mean, I was attacked,” Joy replied.

 

“What was it, a year and a half ago? You go shopping, alone, in the city, two guys, one with a gun and one with a knife try to drag you into an ally and you sent them both to the hospital with multiple broken bones, one with a rib through his lung. You got such an adrenalin rush and enjoyed it so much that when I came to get you from the police station they told me they were afraid you were mentally unstable from being attacked or were going to turn into some type of vigilante going after bad guys because you enjoyed it so much. Plus for weeks you talked about giving up being a doctor to go into law enforcement.”

 

“Today dad said you told him you hurt the guys badly enough they’d have to go to the hospital, but you left in tears. What really happened that you were so proud of yourself a little over a year ago and yet in a similar situation you were in tears this time? Did they hurt you?” Tim asked

 

“No, they didn’t even last long enough for it to be a real fight, one good kick to the ribs and they ran,” Joy said holding up her hands, “didn’t even last long enough for me bruise or skin up my knuckles.”

 

“Then why were you crying?” Tim asked.

 

Joy hesitated a moment, then told him, “I couldn’t handle all the dead bodies and parts of bodies anymore.”

 

“Dad said he didn’t see anyone out there at all,” Tim told her.

 

“Not human, the robots,” Joy clarified.

 

“Joy, you know they’re just machines,” Tim told her.

 

“And you know I don’t believe that. Have you ever seen one close up? Looked into their eyes?”

 

“No, but dad has worked with them and he says-”

 

“He’s worked with dead ones, parts of bodies, not the live ones. I’ve seen them alive, I’ve looked into their eyes, they are not just machines,” Joy told him.

 

“Alright, maybe you’re right, but what dad is collecting isn’t alive anymore, it’s just dead metal and-”

 

“Don’t,” Joy cut him off, “Don’t you dare call them that, that’s what that jerk dad works for called them, when Optimus and those others broke into the lab.”

 

“How do you even know that?” Tim asked.

 

“I had surprised dad at his office with a pizza, we were eating in his office when they came and you know dad’s office overlooks the research lab that they broke into. The window was broken when the bots first came through and we could hear everything. I swear if I had been one of those bots I would have shot Joyce when he made that comment about dead metal. How would he like it if people started dissecting and studying the bodies of his friends and family who had died, they’re just dead meat after all,” Joy said angrily.

 

“Well I guess if anyone ever starts a robot alien rights movement I know who will be leading it,” Tim said, “Maybe you’re right, maybe not, I don’t know, I guess I’ll have to meet one that’s still functioning before I decide for myself.”

 

“Fair enough, at least it’s better than just assuming without having ever seen one alive,” Joy said.

 

“Good, but don’t tell dad, let’s keep this between us at family get togethers I’m still going to sit there dumbly nodding and agree with him until I know for myself. I can’t take his lectures as well as you do,” Tim told her.

 

“Okay, but only if you don’t tell mom I was at the lab when it was attacked. Dad and I agreed it would just freak her out even worse than she already was,” Joy told him.

 

“No problem. You really sure you’re alright after today?” Tim asked her as he hugged her.

 

“I’m fine and have a lot of work to do around here,” Joy told him.

 

“Alright, I’ll get out of your hair, love you,” he said as he got into his truck.

 

“Love you too,” Joy said before he left.

 

Joy ran into the house for a few minutes and grabbed a bottle of water before heading back to the barn. She hesitated for a moment as she stepped into the yard. The wind had picked up a bit, but felt more like it was blowing straight down and she couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something just felt off. She had almost reached the barn when a huge, metal gangplank dropped down into the yard. Joy instinctively ducked behind an old tractor that was parked near the barn then looked up at where the gangplank was coming from.

 

Through the opening at the top of it she could see inside of what must have been a huge spaceship. Based on where the top of the gangplank was it had to be hovering barely ten feet above the roof of the barn. Three things then happened all at almost the same time, a bot about the same size as Sunfire appeared slowly moving towards the gangplank and from inside the barn she heard Sunfire yell ‘stop, where are you going’ and a second later two of the steeljaws darted out of the barn door closely followed by the two injured ones who were still managing to move at a good speed considering their injuries. As soon as they reached the bot they started to rub against his legs and press their heads into his hands and he stopped to pet each one and inspected them for injuries.

 

Joy couldn’t help smiling as she watched him with the dogs, “ _Yep, he may be a big tough bounty hunter, but he’s totally got a soft spot for those dogs_ ,” she thought as she watched him move down the plank with the dogs still milling around him pressing their heads into his hands as he continued to pet them.

 

As he got closer to the bottom of the plank Joy realized that what she thought had been strangely shaped armor was actually some type of netting that was tied around his upper body and head. It looked as if it had been split in half and the netting was all that was holding him together.

 

Joy finally stepped out of her hiding place and Lockdown stopped, his hands immediately leaving the steeljaw’s heads.

 

“Where is Sunfire, if you’ve hurt him I will kill you,” he threatened as one of his hands transformed into a long blade.

 

Joy took a step back, she wasn’t sure if it was the fact that he was threatening her or his intense green eyes locked with hers, but her heart was racing and she couldn’t string together a single coherent sentence.

 

“Should I be offended that you think one puny little human could hurt me?” Sunfire asked as he stepped out of the barn, “She’s been helping me, probably saved my life and I’m positive if it weren’t for her Star would have bled to death before I regained consciousness.”

 

Lockdown retracted the blade from his arm as he continued to the bottom of the plank, “How did you manage to lose both hands? Lockdown asked turning his attention to Sunfire.

 

“One got shot off the other got caught under the wreckage when I crashed, it was either sit there and wait for someone to come kill me or pull until the wreckage or my arm gave out. Unfortunately the wreckage won and I passed out, but don’t worry, she seems willing to help,” Sunfire said motioning to Joy, “She’s figured out a lot herself while I was unconscious and the rest, just give her a few basic instructions and she’s a pretty decent medic.”

 

“I thought we were finally done having to deal with humans. What about the others, have you been able to contact any of them?” Lockdown asked.

 

“No, my comlink was damaged, haven’t been able to get a hold of anyone. Don’t worry, she’s nicer than the other humans you were working with,” Sunfire assured him, “Anyways, even if we could get a hold of anyone else you’d bleed out before they could get here. I don’t know how you’re conscious now except that you’ve always been such a fighter that you won’t even let your own body force you into stasis. Get inside the barn and let Joy here get those energon lines tied off before you go offline.”

 

Lockdown looked like he briefly tried to glare at Sunfire, although it was hard to tell for sure with the damage to his face, then he headed into the barn.

 

Sunfire smiled down at Joy, “One of the benefits of being the ships medic, I’m the only one who can tell him what to do without getting shot for it.”

 

“He doesn’t sound too happy about this,” Joy pointed out.

 

“Don’t worry, he knows he’ll go offline if he doesn’t let you help him,” Sunfire told her.

 

“Offline?” Joy asked.

 

“Die,” Sunfire clarified.

 

“Alright, let’s do this then,” Joy said before heading into the barn closely followed by Sunfire.

 

\----

 

Joy spent the next several hours reattaching or tying off severed energon lines which had gone smoothly. Although she had panicked a little when Lockdown had suddenly slumped forward and his eyes had gone dark, but Sunfire assured her, his body had just forced him into recharge and it was nothing she had done.

 

 “It’s nearly one in the morning, do you think he’s stable enough I could get a little sleep?” Joy asked Sunfire as she checked one more time for any leaking lines.

 

Sunfire ran a scan on Lockdown then said, “Looks good, the rest can wait until tomorrow.”

 

“Thank goodness,” she said as she climbed down off of the ladder she’d been using to reach the back of Lockdown’s head, “Do you need anything?” Joy asked.

 

“No, I’m good, and if we’re lucky Lockdown will stay in recharge all night, he can be a bit of a pain in the aft when he’s injured and not able to get around normally,” Sunfire said.

 

“So sleep as long as I can because once he’s awake I won’t be getting much rest, right?” Joy asked.

 

“Exactly.”


	2. Chapter 2

 

“Where is she? We should be out looking for the others not stuck sitting around waiting on a human to repair us. Go tell her to get out here,” Joy heard Lockdown saying as she approached the barn.

 

“From what I’ve learned about humans they need more recharge than we do, if they don’t get enough it can affect their ability to function. Do you really want me to go wake her when she hasn’t had enough rest and risk her trying to fix you and ending up making it worse?” Sunfire asked.

 

“Don’t worry about it, I’m already awake,” Joy said as she walked into the barn.

 

“It’s about time,” Lockdown said.

 

Joy deliberately ignored him as she kept her attention on Sunfire, “His head and neck are split in half, why can he even still talk?” she asked.

 

“Luckily his vocal processor wasn’t damaged, he may not be able talk normally, but he can still speak through his comlink system and make that audible. Sort of like one of those cell phones you humans use that can be set so only you can use it or set to a speaker setting,” Sunfire explained.

 

“I’m not so sure his vocal processor not being damaged is really a good thing,” Joy said.

 

“Are you in a hurry to die?” Lockdown ask her.

 

“Why, are you going to kill me and leave yourself with no one to repair you?” Joy asked.

 

“I’m stable now, we don’t need you, our bodies will eventually repair themselves,” Lockdown told her.

 

“And you’ll go crazy waiting to heal, plus if my dad found you out here he’d drag you back to the lab he works at and dissect you,” Joy said shuddering slightly, “You wouldn’t be the first of your kind he’s done that to. The others were already dead, but I’m sure he’d love to get his hands on a living specimen,” she said then turned to Sunfire, “So what do I need to do next?”

 

“We need to start repairing his internal support system, it’s basically equivalent to human bones. My tools would be too big for you to safely use, do you have anything to weld with?” Sunfire asked her.

 

“No, my brother might, but if I ask him, he’ll want to know what I want it for,” Joy told him.

 

“Then just go and buy what you need, and do it quickly, being stuck in here is getting annoying,” Lockdown said.

 

“Do you have any idea how much that would cost? Because I’m not sure, but I’d have to guess it’ll be pretty expensive,” Joy pointed out.

 

“Sunfire take her to the vault, I believe gold is of value on this planet,” Lockdown said.

 

Joy looked up questioningly at Sunfire, but he just smiled at her and said, “Come on,” then led her out of the barn as the ramp into the spaceship appeared.

 

“This is amazing,” Joy said as she followed Sunfire deep into the ship, then gasped and jumped back as some type of strange alien creature lunged at the bars of a cage as she passed it, “What is that?”

 

“It’s going to be the pet of a very rich ruler of a planet a couple galaxies from here,” Sunfire told her.

 

“So you’re bounty hunters and pet wranglers?” Joy asked.

 

“We have our main quarry, but they’re getting harder to find so we hunt down other people or in this case animals for whoever is willing to pay well, it keeps the boredom away. Plus nonsentient animals are a lot easier to catch, most of the time,” Sunfire explained, “And this is just some of our payments from those jobs,” he said as he opened a large door.

 

Joy stood in a state of shock as she looked around the huge room, piles of various metals were stacked to one end of the room, while shelves along the walls held dozens of gems, most unlike anything she had ever seen before, some fashioned into varying sizes and styles of jewelry. Other shelves and cases were filled with hundreds of different types of weapons and things she couldn‘t even begin to identify.

 

Sunfire walked over to one of the shelves and extended a blade from just above where his arm was severed and used it to flip a gold coin the size of Joy’s palm off of it so it fell where Joy could catch it, “It’s solid gold, think you can get enough money for it to get the welding supplies?”  he asked.

 

“Yeah, probably,” Joy replied as she looked at the coin, “It’s going to be fun coming up with an explanation for where I got it though.”

 

“Just make something up, knowing how greedy humans are, whoever you sell it to won’t care where it came from if you don’t ask too much for it,” Sunfire suggested.

 

“You’re probably right,” Joy agreed then noticed another door to one side of the room, “What’s through there, more treasure?”

 

“That’s the spark vault,” Sunfire replied as he opened the door.

 

Joy gasped as she stepped into the room and looked around. Shelves containing dozens and dozens of clear boxes lined the walls. Most of the boxes contained glowing blue ball like things that seemed to pulse with energy, “What are those?”

 

“They’re sparks,” Sunfire replied.

 

“Isn’t that what you said that glowing thing in Lockdown’s chest was?” Joy asked.

 

“Exactly, they’re sort of a combination of a human heart and mind, keeps our bodies functioning and contains a back up memory core. Our minds and memories are stored in our heads like humans, but unlike humans if there’s damage to our heads that cause memory loss once the injuries heal the memories can be restored from our sparks,” Sunfire explained as he turned and led her out of the room.

 

“What are those sparks then? Are they from Decepticons?” Joy asked as she followed him.

 

“Some of them are, others are from Autobots, they’re just the ones who ended up so badly injured when Lockdown was hunting them that they couldn’t fight back. Technically we’re supposed to just destroy them all, but Lockdown says it doesn’t feel right destroying a bot who can’t fight back. He had me design a spark extractor to remove the spark without killing it, so he just takes their sparks and keeps them here. Don’t know what he’s going to do with all those sparks, if the creators find out he hasn’t been destroying them he’ll get himself into a ton of trouble,” Sunfire explained as they headed down the gangplank.

 

“You kill Autobots? I thought they were the good guys,” Joy said as they walked back into the barn.

 

“You can’t kill what’s not alive. Of course we hunt them, Autobots, Decepticons, they’re all glitched and make a mess of everything. They already took over and destroyed one planet, now they’re starting in on Earth,” Lockdown said.

 

Joy hesitated a moment trying to process what he had said, “Wait, I thought they were alive. And what do you mean they took over and destroyed a planet? I thought it was their home planet that had been destroyed.”

 

“No, they started glitching, ran off and took over Cybertron and destroyed it,” Lockdown told her, “That’s why our creators sent me to hunt them down. The creators feel responsible for the destruction that’s been caused and want to make it right by destroying all the robots who are glitching.”

 

Joy felt like her head was spinning, she knew beyond a doubt the intelligence, the life she had seen in the Autobot’s eyes and yet here was a bot she thought was the same, telling her she was wrong, “Your creators? But you’re alive, sentient, you-”

 

“Of course we’re not, we are just far more advanced than anything your technology can create,” Lockdown told her, his voice taking on a cold tone as he said, “We are nothing more than machines, built to serve our creators, we are equipped with highly advanced artificial intelligence systems that are capable of mimicking many responses that make us appear alive to less advanced species, but we are not alive, we are not sentient, we do not feel emotions, we are just machines and our sole purpose is to serve our creators.”

 

The way he said it  made Joy feel sick, it sounded so rehearsed, like he had recited it countless times before and had perfected making it sound as soulless as he was claiming to be. Yet his eyes seemed filled with such pain, sadness and despair that it seemed to counter everything he said.

 

“I should go get those supplies, may take a while to find a pawn shop to get the cash I’ll need,” she said then quickly left the barn. She grabbed her purse and keys from the house before leaving as quickly as she could, but still only made it about a mile away before she had to pull over. Her mind was reeling with confusion and questions, how could they not be alive and sentient, she could see it so clearly in the Autobot’s eyes as well Sunfire and Lockdown’s eyes. Talking to them it never even crossed her mind that they weren’t sentient, talking to Sunfire seemed no different than talking to any human. Lockdown seemed a little more reserved and stiff, but she had a great uncle who had been in the military most of his life who showed less emotion than Lockdown did. Maybe it was because she had spent so long arguing with her father that the bots were sentient or maybe it was just that she was too stubborn to believe she had been wrong, but she just couldn’t make herself believe that they were just advanced machines.  

 

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

 

“I’m back,” Joy said as she walked into the barn a few hours later.

 

“What took you so long?” Lockdown demanded.

 

“I had to go to a couple pawn shops to find one who would take that alien coin, most of them assumed it wasn’t really gold or thought I had stolen it. Then I had to get the welding supplies and have them show me how to use them,” Joy explained, “Why, are you angry that I took so long? Impatient to get fixed? Don’t like being stuck sitting around bored with nothing to do?”

 

“Of course I am, now get to work,” Lockdown ordered.

 

While Joy started to set up the supplies she said, “You know anger, impatience and boredom are emotions, how can you feel those things if you’re not sentient?”

 

Lockdown actually looked caught off guard for a moment, but quickly recovered and said, “As I said before, we are equipped with a highly advanced AI system and are programmed to respond to situations as if we were sentient.”

 

“So how do you turn that off? Because it would be great if I could change your programming so you’re not so impatient and grouchy.”

 

“Only our creators can interfere with our programming,” Lockdown said as if she were stupid for not figuring that out on her own.

 

“So why haven’t they made you more polite?” Joy asked, “Have you ever actually seen them alter a bot’s personality or the way they respond?”

 

“No.”

 

“How do you know they can then? What do they do if they don’t like the way one of you is acting?” Joy asked.

 

“They just destroy any who are malfunctioning.”

 

“So you’re these super advanced robots, but instead of trying to fix you if you stop working right they just kill you? Even though you claim they have the ability to reprogram you?”

 

“You can’t kill something that is not alive, reprogramming is just more trouble than it’s worth,” Lockdown replied.

 

“Have you ever seen them building more robots like you?”

 

“I’ve never seen them building them, but I’ve seen them bring new batches in for training,” Lockdown told her.

 

“So they constantly make more?” Joy asked.

 

“No, they make them in batches and then won’t make more for a while.”

 

“When was the last time they made more?” Joy asked.

 

“Probably about five thousand years ago,” Lockdown replied.

 

“Why haven’t they made more?”

 

“I don’t know, it’s none of my business what the creators do,” Lockdown replied irritably, “Get to work before I decide you’re too annoying to allow to live.”

 

“Just one more question. How long ago was it that the Autobots and Decepticons wiped out their populations on the planet they took over? Got it to the point that they were all living in hiding or whatever and there were no more pockets of decent sized populations living in the open?” Joy asked although she already had a pretty good guess what the answer would be.

 

“What does that have to do with anything?” Lockdown demanded.

 

“I’m just curious,” Joy replied.

 

“I don’t know, probably five thousand years ago. Now get to work,” he ordered.

 

“Alright, alright. Sunfire what do I need to do here?” Joy asked before setting to work.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas!

Joy woke up early the next morning and considered trying to go back to sleep, but decided to see if she could get out to the barn before Lockdown started complaining, not that he wouldn’t find something else to complain about. She couldn’t really blame him for being grouchy though, Sunfire said it was a miracle he hadn’t offlined already and one wrong move could offline him. So he was stuck, sitting in the barn with nothing to do but wait for Joy to get him stabilized enough that his self repair systems could handle the rest without taking weeks for him to be able to move.

 

When Joy got to the barn it was so quite she thought maybe they were still recharging. As she peaked in she found she was half right, Sunfire was laying at the far end of the barn, his eyes still dark in sleep. At the end of the barn near the door, Lockdown was awake, checking the stitching of the wound on Star’s chest, while the other three steeljaws looked to be asleep, lying around him, leaning against his sides or legs.

 

“She may be painfully slow at welding, but she certainly knows how to stitch up organics, doesn’t she?” he said quietly, petting Star as she pressed her head into his hand.

 

Joy silently sat down, keeping herself hidden from Lockdown’s view, behind the stairs that were just inside the door, that lead to the upper floor of the barn. As each steeljaw woke up they were treated to the same inspection of wounds and petting as Star had received, until all four were standing, crowded around Lockdown as he pet them. With his face split in half Joy couldn’t be sure, but she could have sworn he was smiling.

 

A little while later Joy noticed that Sunfire had woken up and was watching her. As soon as he knew he had her attention he grinned, gave a barely noticeable nod towards Lockdown then shifted slightly as if he were just waking up. In a split second Lockdown made a barely audible noise and all the steeljaws were sitting stiffly at his sides. Joy quickly, but quietly slipped out of the barn, a hand clamped over her mouth to keep herself from laughing.

 

A few minutes later Joy walked into the barn, “It’s about time you got out here, it’s bad enough you work so slowly, then you have to take forever to get out here in the morning,” Lockdown said.

 

Joy just grinned at him, “Good morning to you too,” she said as she walked up to Star and started petting her, “You poor things, having to put up with this grouchy bot all the time.” Star leaned into her, nearly knocking her over, “As for you, Mr. Grumpy,” she said turning her attention back to Lockdown, “I think getting almost half of your spine put back together was pretty good considering I’ve never welded anything before in my life. But if you want me to work faster I can try, just don’t complain to me if any of those wires running along your spine get melted.”

 

“Just get to work,” Lockdown ordered.

 

“Yes sir, Captain Cuddles,” Joy said, saluting before heading to get the welding supplies.

 

“What did you call me?” Lockdown demanded.

 

“Captain Cuddles, I use to have a black cat that hated all the other cats and wouldn’t let any of them get near him, as a joke we called him Cuddles. You remind me of him,” Joy explained, leaving out the fact that when her brother’s pet rabbit had gotten out of its cage they’d found it unharmed, cuddled up with Cuddles, which was the real reason he’d gotten the name. Joy noticed Sunfire who seemed to be trying not to laugh until he noticed her looking at him and he grinned at her.

 

\-------

 

By that evening Joy had gotten the rest of Lockdown’s spine welded back together and was getting ready to start working on his head, “Will I need to reattach all these wires in his head?” she asked Sunfire.

 

“No, once you get his head put back together the wires should reconnect on their own within a couple days, then you can just check to make sure everything went back together right,” Sunfire told her.

 

“Okay, well I’ll get started on that first thing in the morning,” Joy said.

 

“It’s not even dark out yet, there’s no reason you can’t keep working at least a couple more hours,” Lockdown said.

 

“I’ve been at this all day, this is exhausting work, I’m so tired I can barely stay awake,” Joy told him.

 

“You humans are so pathetic,” Lockdown said.

 

“I guess I could try to work a little longer, but you’ll have to talk to me to keep me awake enough to not mess anything up.”

 

“Fine, and what do you want to talk about?” Lockdown demanded irritably, “And don’t you dare start in on that stupid idea of yours.”

 

Joy couldn’t help smiling, he seemed so easy to manipulate sometimes, “Okay. You’ve traveled all over the universe, right?”

 

“Yes,” Lockdown replied.

 

“Tell me about the other planets you’ve been to, what they’re like, what type of life is out there. Are all sentient beings flesh and blood organics or are they completely different from anything on earth?” Joy asked.

 

“Each galaxy seems to have a basic dominate type of sentient organisms, you’re galaxy is flesh and blood, but that’s where the similarities end, some sentient species on other planets in this galaxy resemble earth animals, while others are unlike anything on earth. They also range in size from no bigger than a mouse to bigger than me. Most aren’t capable of space travel yet, but there are a few that have mastered it well enough to have visited earth, which is where some of your planet’s stories of UFOs come from, although most are from other, more advanced galaxies.

 

“Other galaxies are dominated by a wide array of species, their basic composition ranging from plant, liquid, rock metal, energy and some that there’s really no substance on earth to even compare them too,” he told her.

 

“You’re so lucky, you’ve gotten to see so much. I’ve always wanted to travel and explore, but I’ve never even been out of the country. What are the other planets like?” Joy asked.

 

Lockdown continued to tell her more details about some of the planets he’d been to and the life forms on them while she worked. A few hours later she had finished welding the back of his head together and hoping he was so wrapped up in the story he was telling that he wouldn’t realize she had stopped she quietly set the supplies aside. She climbed down and silently sat next to one of the steeljaws, just out of Lockdown’s line of site.

 

It didn’t take long for Lockdown to stop and look for her, “You’re quitting already?” he asked.

 

“Better to quit than to doze off and accidentally melt all those wires in your head, you can finish telling me about that planet though,” she replied.

 

“Why should I if you’re not going to keep working?”

 

“Oh alright, you can finish tomorrow, one quick question though,” Joy said.

 

“What now?” Lockdown asked.

 

“You said there’s a galaxy where the sentient species are made of metal, which galaxy is that? Is it the same galaxy that Cybertron is in?” Joy asked.

 

“If you need sleep go sleep, now,” Lockdown told her, the fact that he was glaring at her was much more obvious now that the back of his head was holding the two halves of his face closer together.

 

Joy got up and started to head towards the door then stopped, “You know I’m right, you just don’t want to admit that you’re wrong,” she said, ducking out the door just in time to avoid a bale of hay that came flying her way.

 

“Be careful, you don’t want to hurt her, we still need her help,” she heard Sunfire say.

 

“Why do you think I threw the hay instead of the tractor?” Lockdown said.

 

“It still could have hurt her,” Sunfire told him.

 

Joy was just about to head to the house when she heard Sunfire almost hesitantly say, “You know she’s made some good points, what if she’s right? I mean at one time even you-”

 

“Don’t,” Lockdown said, somehow putting enough force into the single word to silence whatever Sunfire was going to say.

 

Joy couldn’t help smiling as she headed into the house, Lockdown was stubborn, but she could be just as stubborn and determined, now if she could just come up with a way to talk to Sunfire alone and find out what he had been talking about.


	4. Chapter 4

 

Despite the long day before Joy had set her alarm so she would be up extra early, just so she could sneak out to the barn. As she had expected the scene was the same as the morning before, the fierce bounty hunter was lovingly petting the steeljaws. Nova even stood up, placing her paws on Lockdown’s chest, pressing her forehead against his while he pet her head and scratched behind her ears for a minute before the others pushed her aside to gain Lockdown’s attention.

 

Just like the day before, as soon as Sunfire showed signs of waking, the steeljaws swiftly moved to sit stiffly at Lockdown’s sides. Joy slipped back outside for a few minutes until Lockdown started complaining about her being lazy, then she walked into the barn.

 

“Do you just wake up and start complaining immediately?” Joy asked.

 

“Only when I’m dealing with lazy, worthless humans,” Lockdown replied.

 

“Well if I’m so worthless to you, then maybe I should quit. I do have a life and plenty of other things I could be doing instead of repairing you,” Joy told him.

 

“Sunfire, when will you be able to take over the repairs?” Lockdown asked.

 

“At least a few more days,” Sunfire said, holding up his arms, the one that had been severed part way up his arm had been restored to his wrist, while the one that had been severed at the wrist seemed to have been restored to the point of being a fingerless hand, “We just need to let her get your support system and spark stabilized and then if you prefer we can let you heal on your own until my hands finish healing.”

 

Lockdown let out a frustrated noise, somewhere between a sigh and a growl then glared down at Joy, “Get to work,” he ordered.

 

“Aye aye Captain Cuddles,” Joy said as she started to get the welding gear ready.

 

“Stop calling me that!” Lockdown demanded angrily.

 

“Make me,” Joy said defiantly, then grinned up at him, “Just remember I’m the one working on your face, we wouldn’t want anything- accidentally getting welded on there that’s not supposed to be there, now would we?”

 

“Just get to work, now!” he snapped.

 

Joy smiled sweetly at him then said, “Could you set the welding supplies up on that second floor loft? It’ll be faster than if I try to carry them up there myself and I think if you move over a little I should be able to reach to weld the top of your head from there.”

 

Lockdown glared at her, but did as she asked.

 

“Before you weld up the top of his head I’m going to have you poke around in his brain a little,” Sunfire told Joy as she climbed up to the loft.

 

“You want me to poke around in his brain? Are you sure that’s a good idea? There are so many wires and who knows what else in there, what if I mess something up?” Joy asked.

 

“Don’t worry, what you’re for looking should stand out and will be easy to fix,” Sunfire assured her.

 

“Alright, I guess,” Joy replied uncertainly as she looked down into the top of Lockdown’s head.

 

“You’re looking for a round piece of metal with several different colored lights and colors of wires coming out of it.”

 

“Okay, I see it,” Joy replied after spotting it.

 

“Just twist the wires together to reattach it, you’ll know which ones connect to it because they’re the only wires that will match the ones on the round piece.”

 

“Okay,” Joy replied as she started attaching the wires, “Why do I need to do this, but you said not to worry about the rest of the wires?”

 

“They’ll all eventually reattach on their own because of the self repair systems, but reattaching these by hand will speed up the healing and this particular device should help speed up the repairs,” Sunfire explained.

 

\--------

 

By noon Joy was working on welding Lockdown’s face back together, still perched on the loft with him turned enough to face her. Joy looked over the work she had done after getting as far down his face as she could reach from the loft, she just had to finish with his chin and his face would be fully back together. It wasn’t pretty, but at least there wasn’t a gaping hole down the center of his face and really, who would care about the welded line down the center of his face with those stunning green eyes to draw their attention. Such amazing eyes, an intricate array of moving metal and light, so mechanical, yet at the same time seeming so alive and full of emotion, pain and despair hidden behind determination and detachment. How could he deny that he was sentient when she could see it so clearly?

 

Joy was pulled from her thoughts when Sunfire started to snicker, causing both Joy and Lockdown to jump slightly and look at him.

 

“What’s so amusing?” Lockdown demanded.

 

“Just your little staring contest was rather entertaining,” Sunfire replied.

 

“We were not having a staring contest,” Lockdown told him.

 

Sunfire grinned, “Then why were you two staring at each other for the last four minutes?”

 

“I was checking the welding to make sure I had gotten everything done I could do from up here before moving the equipment,” Joy told him, busying herself with straightening up the supplies before leaving the loft.

 

\---

 

“What’s with the green slime?” Joy ask as she was about to start welding Lockdown’s chin back together.

 

“It’s transformation fluid, keeps everything moving smoothly, run out and transforming gets very painful. Lockdown had a weapon modification that had lots of moving parts and a transformation fluid reserve that seems to have been badly damaged. You’ll need to clean it off of anywhere you’ll need to weld,” Sunfire told her.

 

“Why me? Can’t he clean himself up?” Joy asked.

 

“That would be preferable, but with the damage it’ll be easier for your smaller hands to get it out of the wounds without causing more damage,” Lockdown told her.

 

“Fine,” Joy said before heading into the house to get a pile of old rags.

 

\-----------

 

An hour later Joy threw another rag onto the pile of used rags and climbed down from Lockdown’s chest, “I think that’s the last of it,” she said heading towards the barn door.

 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Lockdown demanded.

 

“I’m covered in slime, I’m going to go take a shower and if I ever manage to get this stuff off of me I’ll be back,” Joy replied as she headed out of the barn.

 

Joy had barely gotten half way to the house when she saw Tim’s truck pulling up the driveway, “Can’t you ever call before coming over?” she asked as Tim got out of his truck.

 

“I did call, you just haven’t been answering your phone. What are you doing and what are you covered in?” Tim asked.

 

“I’m trying to teach myself how to do vehicle repairs with one of the old tractors and something leaked out of the tractor,” Joy told him.

 

“Since when do you want to learn to repair vehicles?” Tim asked.

 

“Since before I could drive, remember I use to say I wanted to know how to do my own repairs before I got a car, so I wouldn’t have to pay someone else to fix it. I just decided this summer I’m actually going to try it. So why are you here?” Joy asked, hoping to change the subject.

 

“You still living like some type of prehistoric freak with no cable?” Tim asked.

 

“Of course, as much as it costs I have no intention of ever messing with it, why?

 

“Because you’re going to miss some pretty amazing footage of the robots fighting,” Tim told her.

 

“How amazing can a bunch of bots shooting at each other be? I‘ve seen lots of videos like that,” Joy pointed out.

 

“It’s only a few bots and it’s more hand to hand and blades than shooting,” Tim held up a flash drive then said, “But if you don’t want to see it-”

 

“Okay, you’ve got my attention,” Joy said grabbing the flash dive out of his hand and heading into the house, “So who was crazy enough to stick around to record fighting bots?”

 

“Some reporter in China, they found him and his camera crushed under a brick wall, there was a major explosion and apparently he fell on top of the camera and the wall fell on him. The camera was damaged by the heat, but by some miracle the SD card survived. He gave his life getting some really amazing footage, so in his honor it’s been distributed to all the major news networks around the world,” Tim explained.

 

“I am so glad you just manage things backstage, I’d worry myself sick if you were actually out reporting the news,” Joy told him as she plugged in the flash drive.

 

“Sure would be more exciting though,” Tim said as he opened the file.

 

Any reply Joy would have made died away as soon as the video started to play. It was shaky at first, apparently being shot from the window of a car as it followed Optimus. It steadied just in time to catch Lockdown jumping off of his ship to make a flaming entrance to the fight.

 

“He sure knows how to make an entrance,” Joy commented as they continued to watch the video.

 

Both bots fought well, but Lockdown’s speed and agility were beyond anything she had ever seen before. She was totally engrossed in the fight until it was suddenly paused.

 

“Why’d you stop it?” Joy asked.

 

“I know you like watching a good fight, but you’re totally drooling over a couple robots,” Tim said.

 

“I am not,” Joy insisted.

 

“You don’t even sound like you believe that,” Tim said.

 

“It’s just the fighting I’m drooling over, not the bots,” she insisted then glancing at where the video had paused she smirked and added, “Although I have to admit after years of trying to find out everything I can about them and seeing a lot of pictures, I’d have to say Lockdown has the best looking backside I’ve ever seen on one of them,” taking advantage of the stunned silence from Tim she started the video.

 

“Wow, talk about mopping the floor with someone,” Joy said as Lockdown caught the yellow Autobot by the feet and swung his face into the ground.

 

“You know the black robot is the bad guy, right?” Tim asked.

 

“Who cares, look at the way he moves,” Joy replied never taking her eyes from the screen.

 

As the fight came to an end, even though she knew it was coming she still cringed when Lockdown’s upper body was sliced in half. Tim pulled the flash drive from the computer and said, “Well I think it’s a good thing Mr. Nice Ass got killed.”

 

“Why?” Joy asked.

 

“Because that way I don’t have to worry about my sister chasing after some robot just because he can fight and she thinks he’s got a nice ass,” Tim replied.

 

“Oh come on, shouldn’t you be able to tell when I’m joking by now?” Joy said.

 

“Unfortunately, yes. I can also tell when you’re trying to sound like you’re joking, but actually believe what you’re saying.”

 

“I-well-I mean, just compared to the others, that doesn‘t mean I think-” Joy stopped when Tim raised an eyebrow in disbelief. When she had first said it she hadn’t even realized how serious she was, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized there was no denying it to herself, she thought Lockdown had a nice backside and the way he moved and fought... She groaned and dropped her head onto the desk, “Do me a favor and don’t mention to dad that I have totally lost my mind.”

 

“Don’t worry, everyone knows you’re insane, but I guess we can keep your thing for alien bot butts between us,” Tim told her laughing, “It’s about time I got some good blackmail on you.”

 

\--

 

As soon as Tim had left Joy shut the front door and leaned back against it, “That’s it, I’m losing my mind, I can’t be falling for a giant alien robot. He’s a jerk, he doesn’t like humans, he’s demanding and acts like he’s better than everyone else, he won’t even believe he’s sentient, and he’s so stubborn. But when he thinks no one is watching he’s so cute and caring with the dogs and I can see it in his eyes, there’s so much more to him than he’s willing to let on. Oh his eyes, they’re so amazing- Stop it, it would never work, he’s a twenty foot tall alien robot, you’re a fragile little human, it would never workout, so there’s no point even thinking about it, or standing around talking to yourself about it,” Joy said as she pushed away from the door and headed upstairs to get cleaned up.

 

\--

 

When Joy got out of the shower and started to get dressed she took one look at the t-shirt she had planned on wearing and decided it was too hot and stuffy in the barn for it. She stepped out into her bedroom wearing only her shorts and bra and headed towards her dresser to grab a tank top.

 

“What’s taking you so long?” Lockdown suddenly demanded.

 

Joy let out a startled yelp and spun around to face the open balcony doors, crossing her arms over her chest as she did, “What do you think you’re doing out of the barn? Get out of here!” she demanded.

 

Lockdown stared at her for a moment then his eyes dimmed and a second later a perfect human sized replica of him appeared standing on the balcony, the only difference being that the replica showed no signs of the damage caused by being split in half. Then he started to walk across the room towards her.

 

She should have tried to stop him or figure out what he was up to, but all she could focus on was the way he moved, he just seemed to exude confidence even as he seemed to flicker slightly.

 

Joy finally took a step back as he got close to her, “What are-” she was cut off as his lips came down on hers. His lips were warm and although metal, they were a soft flexible metal. His one hand slipped to her lower back, pulling her closer to him while the other brushed over her bare shoulder.

 

When he finally stopped Joy looked into his eyes for a moment, struggling to string together a coherent thought and the first clear thought in her mind was that maybe a relationship with him wasn’t as crazy and impossible as she had thought. Surely he couldn’t continue to deny having emotions, not after a passionate kiss like that. Finally regaining enough focus to speak Joy asked, “What do you think you’re doing?”

 

“I-” Lockdown hesitated, looking nearly as shocked by what he had done as Joy was, but it didn’t take him long to recover, his face returning to the familiar emotionless mask, “The creators wanted to know about humans, this is an action humans seem to do quite often, it’s easier to describe it to them having experienced it,” he told her as he released her from his arms and took a step back.

 

“So you’re just using me to experiment on?” Joy demanded, she didn’t fully believe his excuse, but it was enough to shake the hope she had felt.

 

“Of course,” Lockdown replied calmly.

 

“Get out, now!” Joy told him angrily shoving him away from her, “If you ever try that again I‘ll-” she was cut off as he suddenly pinned her back against the wall.

 

“No weak little human tells me what to do,” he growled at her before kissing her again.

 

Joy wasn’t sure what was harder, resisting the urge to kick him and probably break a foot or resist the desire to return the kiss. Luckily for her he seemed to flicker again, lost his grip on her and she slipped away, glaring at him warily.

 

He flickered again then completely disappeared, “Hurry up and get back to work,” he demanded, now seemingly back to his normal body at the window.

 

Before anything else could be said Joy heard Sunfire outside, “I go to the ship for five minutes and you’re running around? I told you you’re not stable enough to be up yet, what do you think you’re doing?”

 

“She was taking too long,” Lockdown replied, his voice fading as he walked away.

 

Deciding she had had quite enough of putting up with Lockdown for the day Joy changed her clothes, grabbed her bow and arrows and got into her truck. As soon as she started the truck the miniature version of Lockdown appeared standing outside of the driver’s door.

 

“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.

 

“I had things I was planning on doing before you showed up and made a mess of my life. I’m going to go do one of those things and get back to repairing you tomorrow. If you don’t like it, too bad, you can accept that I’ll help you when I darn well feel like it or I can call my dad and he’ll be dissecting you so fast you won’t know what hit you,” Joy told him before tearing off down a dirt path that ran through the fields to the forest.

 

\----------

 

A few hours later Joy pulled the truck into the side of the barn where there was an area that had been set up to butcher meat in the past. She got the deer she had killed hung up so she could clean it then started getting out the knives she would need.

 

“What are you doing?” Lockdown asked from the other end of the barn where he was sitting within sight of her.

 

“Making dinner,” Joy replied before slitting the deer’s throat to drain the blood.

 

“You’re going to eat that?” Sunfire asked, looking a little disgusted.

 

“Yep, eat the meat, make moccasins out of the hide, rattles out of the toes, string out of the sinew, carve various things out of the bone, nothing goes to waste. Well almost nothing,” she said as she rather violently sliced the deer’s stomach open and pulled the guts out, dropping them with a loud plop onto the ground, “but even the guts will be eaten by scavengers by morning.” she felt a little bad for clearly grossing Sunfire out, but she was still annoyed with Lockdown and had been hoping to get a similar reaction out of him, no such luck, but she could have sworn he looked almost impressed, although that didn‘t last long.

 

“How long is this going to take you? You should be working on my repairs,” Lockdown said.

 

“It’ll be a while, I have to get this taken care of before the meat goes bad, so unless you want to help you’ll just have to sit and wait,” she replied then jumped back as the human sized version of him appeared next to her, “How the heck do you do that?” she asked.

 

“It’s called a holoform,” Sunfire replied, “sort of like a hologram but we can transfer our full consciousness into it, see, hear, feel, everything as if it were our real body, it can also be altered to look like any other species we come in contact with. That thing I had you fix in his head this morning was his holoform projector, once it’s fully healed and stops flickering he’ll be able to help with his own repairs.”

 

“What about you, do you have one too?” Joy asked.

 

“I use to, had a run in with a Decepticon who thought he needed it more than I did, ripped it right out of my head. Not that he needed it much after Lockdown got through with him, but there are two types of connections for it, to transfer our consciousness to it, it has to be connected to our brains and our sparks. Brain connections are easy to make, that’s why you were able to repair Lockdown’s. The spark connections are more difficult and can make you go offline if done wrong, so you have to have a well trained medic to do that part, which is why mine has never been reinstalled,” Sunfire explained.

 

“Enough talk, what needs done here so you can get back to my repairs?” Lockdown asked.


	5. Chapter 5

 

With Lockdown’s help Joy had finished cleaning the deer in time to finish repairing his chin before bed.

 

The next morning Joy started to sneak out to the barn early to watch Lockdown with the dogs, but he was missing. She heard something behind the barn and headed around to investigate, as she was almost to the corner of the barn she saw a large log fly through the air out into the field followed by three of the dogs. Joy peeked around the corner and saw Lockdown sitting against the back of the barn with Star, her head resting on his leg as he pet her. The others brought the log back and Lockdown threw it again. As the others took off after it Star raised her head and whimpered.

 

“I know girl, I don’t like it either, but neither of us are in any condition to be running around much yet,” Lockdown told her, scratching behind her ears as she laid her head back down.

 

When the dogs returned with the log Shadow walked up to Lockdown with it, but wouldn’t let go when Lockdown tried to take it. They had a tug of war with the log for a minute before Shadow started growling.

 

“Don’t you get an attitude with me,” Lockdown told him, but Shadow just growled again and then Lockdown started growling back playfully.

 

Joy tried to clamp a hand over her mouth to stop her laugh, but that just made it come out as a strangled snorting noise, immediately drawing Lockdown’s attention. The look on his face was like a deer caught in headlights. That was the last straw, any chance Joy might have had at regaining her composure disappeared at the look on his face and she collapsed in a fit of giggles.

 

“You-” she giggled, “You are absolutely adorable!” she finally managed to get out, petting Star as she walked over to her looking concerned about the way Joy was acting, “I’m so glad I finished repairing your face yesterday, because the look on your face was priceless.”

 

“They need exercise,” Lockdown said glaring at her.

 

“And growling at them helps how? Just admit it, you have a soft spot for them,” Joy said.

 

“If you ever tell anyone-”

 

“Yeah yeah, I know, you’ll kill me. Once you’re done playing, get inside so we can get started on finishing those repairs,” Joy told him.

 

“You don’t tell me what to do,” Lockdown said angrily.

 

Joy fought back a grin as she started formulating a plan, she may have been ticked about the excuse he had come up with to explain why he had kissed her the day before, but afterwards she had started to regret not just letting him kiss her the second time, she had assumed she wouldn’t get another chance.

“Yes I do, I tell you to get me stuff while I’m working on repairing you and you do it, I tell you to tell me about space while I’m working on your repairs and you do it. I told you not to kiss me again and although you did try it again it was a rather pathetic, probably half hearted, failed attempt after which you gave up because you’ve accepted that it’s easier to just do what I tell you to,” Joy said before turning to walk back towards the side of the barn.

 

She barely got more than a few steps when she was spun around by Lockdown’s holoform and he kissed her. Joy just melted into the kiss, letting herself enjoy every second of it until he finally let her go.

 

“You do not tell me what to do, I only stopped yesterday because my holoform wasn’t working right and every other time you think I’ve done something because you told me to was only so I could control you and keep you doing what I wanted you to,” Lockdown told her.

 

Joy never took her eyes off his face as he spoke, this was what it would probably look like once the welding scars healed, she took in all the little moving parts, admired his brilliant green eyes, then finally said, “Whatever, you still need to come into the barn when you want me to finish your repairs, I can’t exactly do them out here,” she said, then grinned, “Has anyone ever told you, you have an adorable little nose?”

 

He glared at her briefly before his holoform disappeared, then Joy quickly walked away around the barn before she lost her ability to keep from smiling, “He is so easy to manipulate, isn’t he?” she said petting Star who had followed her around the barn.

 

A short while later Lockdown came back into the barn, “Are you trying to offline yourself?” Sunfire demanded, “There’s damage to your spark, one wrong move and you could go offline.”

 

“I can’t stand sitting around doing nothing this long. What difference does it make anyways, if enough of us offline they can just build more,” Lockdown said then turned his attention to Joy, “Get to work.”

 

“Yes sir, captain-”

 

“Don’t make me shoot you,” Lockdown threatened.

 

Joy smiled at him then whispered, “But it’s so perfect for you, especially after what I saw this morning.”

 

Lockdown glared at her, but before he could say anything Sunfire said, “Now that his main back support system and head are repaired you’d better get his spark stabilized before he offlines himself.”

 

Sunfire had her start out by checking the wires that connected to Lockdown’s spark then move on to the spark chamber.

 

“My scans indicate the outer two layers are damaged, is that what it looks like?” Sunfire asked.

 

“Yeah, looks like a big chunk was taken out of the metal layer and a smaller portion of an inner clear layer, it looks like there’s another undamaged clear layer inside of that, but it looks like there’s also electric sparking through the undamaged layer to the broken layers. Does that mean there’s damage to the inner layer?” Joy asked, feeling a little nervous about playing heart surgeon after what Sunfire had said earlier about one wrong move potentially killing Lockdown.

 

“No, it should be fine, it’s normal for some energy to escape to the outer layers, that’s why there are multiple layers,” Sunfire explained, “I don’t have the supplies we’d need to patch the inner layer, but any earth metal will work for patching up the outer layer, that should stabilize things and the inner layer will heal on its own.”

 

“Are you sure this is safe? I won’t get electrocuted or anything?” Joy asked.

 

“No, it’s not really electricity, some different type of energy, you won’t even feel it if you come in contact with it,” Sunfire assured her.

 

Joy had just finished attaching the first piece of metal to Lockdown’s spark casing and was turning to get another piece when she lost her balance and fell on to his spark, one hand landing on the inner casing as she tried to catch herself. A shock of electricity seemed to shoot through her and with it a jumble of emotions she somehow knew weren’t her own. Despair, guilt, helplessness, loneliness and love, somehow seeming directly connected to the love was confusion and a feeling of being out of control and from that fear. Buried deeper almost restrained by the guilt was a desire to fight and a desire for freedom.

 

Joy pulled away quickly, “What the heck was that?” she asked, although from the look on Lockdown’s face he was just as confused and stunned as she was.

 

“What was what?” Sunfire asked.

 

“When I came in contact with that inner layer of his spark, it was like an electrical shock and-, you said that wouldn’t happen,” Joy told him.

 

“I don’t know, I’ve never had that happen to me and I’ve patched up the inner layer before. Lockdown did you feel anything?” Sunfire asked.

 

Lockdown hesitated for a second then said, “Just like she said, a jolt of electricity through my whole body,” although the way he hesitated Joy suspected he felt the same thing she did.

 

“So what is it? Is it safe for me to keep working on him?” Joy asked.

 

“I don’t know, maybe the spark energy affects humans differently. There is one medic who has spent enough time around humans to possibly know,” Sunfire said.

 

“Then go ask him before we continue this. If she were to be injured or die,” Lockdown hesitated a split second, “Our presence here could be discovered, we can’t take that risk. Take her with you, he may be more likely to help if he sees there really is a human involved.”

 

“Alright, we’ll be back,” Sunfire said before leading Joy towards the ship.

 

“Who are we going to see? I thought you and Lockdown were the only ones here,” Joy asked.

 

“We have Ratchet, supposedly one of the best medics among the Autobots, in the spark vault and a devise we can put his spark into so we can communicate with him,” Sunfire explained.

 

As they continued into the ship Joy asked, “So Lockdown mentioned that your creators wanted him to study humans and report stuff back to them, what type of information was he supposed to be finding out?”

 

“Weapons, technology, stuff like that, to know if humans could defend themselves against the Autobots and Decepticons,” Sunfire replied.

 

“What about information about human behavior, say, maybe he’d try kissing a human so he can describe it to your creators?”

 

Sunfire laughed, “Not a chance, first of all, the creators are only concerned with human’s ability to defend themselves and while kissing isn’t a universal practice, it’s still fairly common, nothing worth studying. Plus there’s no way Lockdown would kiss a human or any other species for that matter, it’s a pointless action used to express an emotion we can’t even feel. Don’t even think about trying it, he’d probably kill you. Is that why you’re asking? Because you’ve developed some misguided crush on him or do you just want to be able to say you’ve kissed an alien robot?”

 

Joy fought the urge to smile at the confirmation that Lockdown’s excuse for kissing her had been a complete fabrication and kept her eyes straight ahead, afraid Sunfire would realize there was more to it than he could have guessed. “So the one time after I had been bugging Lockdown about you guys being sentient, you started to say something that sounded like Lockdown even thought you guys were sentient at one time, what was that about?” Joy asked trying to change the subject.

 

“He also threatened my life if I ever brought it up again and a particularly slow, painful death if I ever mentioned it to you. So forget about that and stop trying to change the subject. If you’re trying to change the subject does that mean it’s more likely you actually have a crush on Lockdown and you’re embarrassed or is it really that embarrassing that you just want to kiss an alien?” Sunfire asked.

 

Joy smiled deviously, “Oh it’s much more interesting than either of your theories, but I really don’t think I should tell. How about an exchange of secrets, you tell me about Lockdown, I’ll never let him know you told me, and I’ll tell you why I asked about kissing him.”

 

Sunfire glared at her for a moment then smiled and said, “Fine, you’ve got a deal. It was millennia ago, a bunch of us got it into our heads that we were sentient, including Lockdown and he put a plan into action to run away, find a remote planet where we could live out our lives however we wanted. It worked at first, we got off planet, but the creators found us, we were betrayed by one of our own, a lot of bots were-” he hesitated a moment pain and heartache evident on his face before he continued, “a lot of bots were offlined and Lockdown was forced to watch as they were. Some of us wanted to try again, keep fighting for our freedom, but Lockdown refused to have any part in it and did everything he could to talk the rest of us out of it. He’d never admit it, but I think, at least back then he still believed we were sentient, but he blamed himself for the ones who had been offlined and couldn’t bear the pain of seeing any more of us offlined. That scar down the side of his face isn’t from a recent battle, they burned it with acid to prevent it from healing, as a permanent reminder of what had happened. Sometimes, like when he thinks no one is watching and he’s interacting with the steeljaws, I think deep down he knows we’re sentient, he’s just gotten so use to denying that, that he won’t let himself believe we might be sentient.”

 

Suddenly the despair she saw in his eyes made sense and she knew somehow the guilt and hopelessness she had felt when she touched his spark really were his feelings, “What do you believe?” she asked.

 

“That it’s less painful to tell yourself you’re a soulless machine than admit you’re alive and will spend your entire life as a slave,” Sunfire replied as they entered the spark vault.

 

Sunfire pulled out a machine and one of the sparks, then placed the spark into the machine, “If this is still working he should be able to see and talk to us,” he told her then turned his attention to the machine, “Ratchet, can you hear me? We need your medical knowledge.” he asked.

 

“You must have short circuited your brain if you think I’d ever help the likes of you,” Ratchet replied, “Are you capturing humans now too?”

 

“She’s just assisting us with some repairs, which is why we need your assistance,” Sunfire explained.

 

“Is she one of those backstabbing humans you’ve been working with?” Ratchet demanded.

 

“No, her even being involved was a chance accident,” Sunfire told him.

 

“I’ll talk to her alone, not with scrap like you,” Ratchet told him.

 

“Fine,” Sunfire said, walking over to where Joy was, “I’ll be right outside, just pound on the door when you’re done.”

 

“Alright,” Joy replied before heading over to the spark machine.

 

As soon as the door closed Ratchet asked, “Are you alright? Have they hurt you or anyone else to force you to help them?”

 

“No, not at all, I found Sunfire injured in the city and brought him back to my farm to help him and then Lockdown showed up. He’s in really bad condition and I’ve been trying to help get them patched up, but something really weird happened today and Sunfire wasn’t sure what caused it,” Joy explained.

 

“You’re helping them, willingly? Do you have any idea what type of monsters you’re helping?” Ratchet asked.

 

“All I know is it’s complicated and although Lockdown can be a bit of a jerk, they’ve done nothing to harm me,” Joy replied.

 

“They go through the universe killing and capturing Autobots and Decepticons alike, killing far more than they capture, sometimes killing innocent people in the process,” Ratchet told her.

 

“I don’t know what to believe, but Lockdown seemed sincere when he told me he believes that your being here, bringing your war here that the same thing will happen to earth that happened to Cybertron. He thinks it’s better to kill some innocent people to catch you guys if it means saving the whole planet full of people and the humans he was working with agreed.”

 

“There aren‘t even enough of us left to pose that much of a threat to earth, He really said that? He really believes we’d let that happen to another planet?” Ratchet asked.

 

“It seemed like it,” Joy replied, “Ever think maybe he’s not the monster you think he is, that maybe he’s just been horribly misinformed by the aliens who sent him to hunt you?”

 

“Not before today, I still doubt it, he’s probably just manipulating you into helping him. Because of that I can’t give you any information to help get him back to hunting my friends,” Ratchet told her.

 

“That’s not why I’m here, with or without your knowledge Sunfire said he’ll recover fully and it won‘t be long before Sunfire can take over the repairs. Something weird happened though and Sunfire has never heard of anything like it and isn’t sure if it’s safe for me to keep working on him or if we should just let Lockdown heal naturally until Sunfire’s hands have healed enough for him to take over,” Joy explained.

 

“Fine, what happened?” Ratchet relented.

 

“His spark chamber was damaged, I was trying to patch it up when I slipped and touched inside the break and it was like I was feeling all these emotions that weren’t mine.”

 

“He let you near his spark?” Ratchet asked in disbelief.

 

“Yeah, the outer casing was damaged, I was trying to patch it, why is it so shocking that he’d have me fix it?” Joy asked.

 

“Medics have to have their hands specially treated to be able to work on a spark. He should have known that, even if he didn’t realize it would have the same effect on an organic, Sunfire should have known it would. It’s one of the first things they teach in medic training, even after the war started it’s one of the first things an apprentice medic would have been taught,” Ratchet said.

 

“Is it that dangerous?” Joy asked starting to worry.

 

“No, no it’s nothing to worry about, it’s not dangerous,” Ratchet assured her.

 

“Then why does it sound so important?” Joy asked.

 

“Spark contact is considered fairly intimate-”

 

“Intimate, how intimate are we talking?” Joy asked.

 

“That depends on how far into the spark chamber you are, there are three layers to the spark chamber. The outer metal covering that protects it and inside of that are two clear layers that protect it, each layer letting through a little less of the sparks energy. Contact with the outermost clear layer results in subtle and controlled sharing of emotions, often used between parents and sparklings too young to tell their parents what they need. Or between couples who are just getting to know each other and are struggling to put their feelings into words, you can only sense the emotion the other person wants you to know. In terms of humans, think of it as early courtship kissing. Contact with the inner clear layer shares emotions freely, there’s no controlling what the other person feels, they know everything you’re feeling, and often connections between emotions, if one emotion is caused by another, it’s generally reserved for couples who are in love and have been courting for a while. Compared to humans, more like the passionate state that some humans refer to as making out. It’s also on rare occasions used to confirm spark activity when a bot has been in stasis lock for a while. Contact at the spark core, inside that last layer is called bonding, emotions, thoughts and memories are shared freely, bonded couples literally have no secrets from each other because they have almost no control over what is shared during bonding. It creates a lifelong bond, the closest thing humans have to it is marriage. It can also potentially lead to the creation of a new spark, that’s the only part that wouldn’t be possible for a human as far as I know, every other organic species Cybertronian’s have intermarried with experience the rest and as you were able to feel his emotions I’d say it’s likely the same for humans,” Ratchet explained.

 

“Okay, well at least the inner most layer was still intact, but what do you mean creation of a new spark?” Joy asked.

 

“Cybetronians reproduce similarly to how humans do except for the additional need for the bonding of sparks to create a new spark,” Ratchet told her.

 

“You can reproduce?”

 

“Of course, you didn’t think we just appear out of thin air did you?” Ratchet asked.

 

“No, but Lockdown keeps insisting that you’re all just soulless machines, built by some alien race that he calls the creators, the ones who sent him to hunt you. He says you can’t reproduce, only be built, it’s one of his arguments to prove you’re nothing but machines,” Joy explained.

 

“I don’t believe it, he’s one of the slaves,” Ratchet said quietly, more to himself.

 

“Slaves?” Joy asked.

 

“A few thousand years ago we found an escape pod with a few bots in stasis. When we woke them up and asked where they’d come from they insisted that they had been built by an alien race, treated like soulless machines for as long as they could remember. Until one of them decided they had had enough and planned an escape, they got off planet, but most were recaptured, the few we had found had barely escaped. It didn’t make sense though, they were clearly Cybertronian, they couldn’t have been built by anyone. While checking their systems I found a wire that had been cut and melted with acid so it wouldn’t heal, that’s when everything started to make sense. There used to be reports of small, remote towns being completely wiped out, everyone killed, the strange thing was all of the male sparklings, equivalent to an age of about twelve in humans or younger, would be missing, no one could ever come up with an explanation for that, not until we found those three. Cybertronians like humans learn much faster when they’re young, they have separate memory banks to handle the increased learning speed, one for basic survival knowledge and one for memories. The cut wire prevented them from accessing those memories, all they could remember was what had happened after they had been kidnapped and enslaved. I was able to cut off the melted part of the wires and reattach them, restore the bots memories, but it wasn’t easy on them, two of them went into stasis lock while their minds tried to make sense of conflicting memories, and come to terms with their past. They wanted to go back to the planet they had been enslaved on, try to rescue the others, especially the bot who had led the escape, but they had been in that escape pod so long he had probably been killed by the aliens who took them long before that and with the war we just didn’t have the resources to go after them,” Ratchet told her.

 

“He wasn’t dead,” Joy said.

 

“What?”

 

“Sunfire just told me about this, about the attempted escape, Lockdown was the one who led it,” Joy told him.

 

“He can’t be. Lockdown is one of the most ruthless bounty hunters in the universe. The way the bots we found described the bot who helped free them was a rebellious, unstoppable hero willing to do anything to gain their freedom. Lockdown does nothing but kill and imprison, usually innocent bots,” Ratchet said.

 

“Well did they tell you this bots name?” Joy asked.

 

“No, they feared what would happen to him if he was alive and the aliens who had enslaved them found out he had been the one to lead the rebellion,” Ratchet replied.

 

“From what little I’ve been able to get out of Sunfire, Lockdown was tortured, forced to watch as some of the bots who had tried to escape were killed. He probably decided it was easier to obey than watch anyone else die. Although he’s still rebelling in a way,” Joy said.

 

“How is that?”

 

“You’re still alive, Sunfire said their orders are to kill all of you, the only reason you’re still alive is because Lockdown doesn’t like to kill a bot who can’t defend them self. Sunfire says if the aliens who are telling them what to do ever find out about all these sparks not being destroyed Lockdown could be in a lot of trouble for it. I don’t think he’s as bad as he tries to seem,” Joy told him.

 

“I guess there’s only one way to find out, you need to get into the back of his head, find the melted wires, trim the ends and reattach them, it will restore his memories,” Ratchet told her.

 

“Okay, I should be able to come up with some excuse to get into his head. Thank you,” Joy said.

 

“You’re welcome, I just hope you’re right about him and once his memory is restored he’ll let me out of here, being stuck unable to do anything is not how I want to spend the rest of my life,” Ratchet said.

 

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about, I believe deep down he’s a good person and once he realizes the truth he’ll finally be able to let that side of himself out. I could feel it when I came in contact with his spark, that desire to fight for his freedom is still there,” Joy told him before heading over to the door to let Sunfire know they were done talking.

 

\---

 

“So is it anything serious?” Sunfire asked as he carried Joy out of the ship.

 

“No, nothing to worry about,” Joy replied.

 

“And you’re not going to tell me anything more than that?” Sunfire asked.

 

“Not right now, but later maybe, or just let you convince Ratchet to explain it,” Joy told him.

 

“Yeah right, you heard what he thinks of me, he’ll never share any of his knowledge with me,” Sunfire said.

 

“You never know, things may just change.”

 

“Sure, I’ll believe that when it happens, sounds about as likely as you getting Lockdown to kiss you,” Sunfire replied, “Now you promised to tell me why you want to kiss Lockdown.”

 

“I never said I wanted to kiss him,” Joy replied.

 

“Why else would you have been asking all those questions, it sure sounded like you were looking for an excuse to kiss him.”

 

“I wasn’t looking for an excuse, research for the aliens you work for was just the excuse he used to explain why he kissed me,” Joy replied.

 

“You’re making that up.”

 

“Nope, he’s a pretty good kisser too,” Joy told him.

 

“It’s not possible, there’s no way he would do that, unless- no way, of all the bots I’ve ever met he’d be the least likely to- and even if he did he’d never do or say anything to admit it, he’s too determined that we’re not able to really feel any emotions, certainly not attraction or love,” Sunfire stuttered out in disbelief.

 

“That’s probably why he looked as shocked I was that he had kissed me and came up with the excuse of it being just for research.”

 

“If he’s the one who initiated it I’m surprised you didn’t kill him for kissing you,” Sunfire asked.

 

“Yeah, well I tried threatening him, but he just took that as an excuse to kiss me again just to prove I couldn’t tell him what to do, or at least that seemed to be his excuse,” Joy told him as he set her down outside the ship, she grinned up at him, “Anyways, if I kill him then there’s no chance of getting him to kiss me again.”

 

“You do like him, don’t you?” Sunfire asked.

 

“Well yeah, if I didn’t then I would have done something to hurt him after he kissed me,” Joy replied.

 

“You know even if he does have feelings for you he’ll never admit it,” Sunfire pointed out.

 

“If he really does have feelings for me he’ll admit it eventually, you’ll see, everything’s about to change,” Joy told him.

 

“You have no idea how much I’d like you to be right, it would be nice to have him fighting for our freedom again instead of mindlessly serving our creators,” Sunfire said before they entered the barn.

 

“What did you find out?” Lockdown asked as soon as they walked in.

 

“Its complicated, you can have Ratchet explain it to you when you’re able to get around, it’s nothing to worry about and that’s all we need to know for now,” Joy replied.

 

 

 

\---------

 

By that evening Joy had finished repairing Lockdown’s spark chamber and quite a bit of his chest and had convinced him to tell her more stories about his travels while she worked. When she was finally too tired to keep working she laid down on one side of his chest where the armor was missing and the metal skin underneath was mostly smooth.

 

As soon as she did Lockdown said, “I won’t tell you anymore unless you’re working on my repairs.”

 

“Yes you will,” Joy replied confidently.

 

“What makes you think that?” Lockdown asked.

 

“Because I know how to get you to do what I want,” Joy told him.

 

“I told you this morning you’ve never-”

 

“I got you to kiss me this morning,” Joy cut in, keeping her voice quite enough that Sunfire wouldn’t hear.

 

“What? You didn’t want me to-” Lockdown trailed off as Joy just grinned at him.

 

“See, I know exactly how to get you to do what I want without you even realizing it. Now how about finishing that story, although if you really don’t want to I could always go tell Sunfire about what I saw you doing this morning, you really were adorable and I wonder what he‘d think of your kissing research,” Joy whispered.

 

“You over confident, manipulative little monster,”

 

“Why thank you, but really I can’t take all the credit, you’ve been a great teacher,” Joy told him.

 

For a split second Joy could have sworn she saw the corner of his mouth twitch up, but it was quickly replaced by a scowl, “Fine,” Lockdown relented then continued the story.


End file.
